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Sunday, 24 November 2013

Pumpkin Physics

Then, one day, BANG. It breaks out, expands to fill all available space.

Well, pumpkins live by the same principles. The moment a seed gets the chance it grows and grows and grows. But that's not what amazes me. It's what follows.

One of my pumpkins just sitting looking innocuous

You pick your precious pumpkin, sharpen your knives and slice it into ginormous chunks.
From that moment on, pumpkin physics takes over. It contradicts all the physics you may have learned at school. For, the second its skin is broken, the pumpkin, like the airbag, starts expanding to fill all available space.

So what to do with these mountains of pumpkin. Well, I filled my largest stock pot in preparation for making a spicy pumpkin soup - so simple to make. Just fry off some onions and garlic, throw in some spices and as much chilli as you like. Add some stock and the pumpkin.

Spicy Pumpkin Soup on the way

Then just cook it until soft and blitz.

But I still had plenty of pumpkin left, enough to fill two more large saucepans and still have chunks of pumpkin spilling out onto the worktop.

Now, as it happens, I also had a bowl of old pears waiting to go out. So my mind started to create. I wonder. Would pear and pumpkin go together? I'll throw in a few spices and some ginger... yes, ginger, that'll go with both and tie the whole dish together.

A perfect match?

﻿

My concoction simmering away

I'd like to say that I created a stunning new dish. Yes. I'd like to say that. But the fact is that it just tasted a bit weird. Somewhere between a soup and a pudding! I tried to save it in the soup direction by adding stock, some turmeric, pepper. In fact, anything soupy.

Maybe I should have tried to take it the other way and create a dessert out of it.

Anyway, I've learned something at least. And I've not lost a lot. It all went on the compost heap, which is where the pears would have ended up whatever.

As for all that pumpkin skin and innards, the compost heap and chickens were very happy indeed. And apparently pumpkin seeds are supposed to be good for purging the chickens' digestive systems.

3 comments:

Pumpkin makes a very nice breakfast marmalade and you can always blanch it in pieces (leaving the skin on) and then freeze it in polythene bags and cook with the roast potatoes in exactly the same way. Pumpkin never goes to waste here either. If your roasties are taking their time to brown add some pieces of onion and roast them as they cook the sugars in them will caramelise and then the rest of your roasties will brown also.

Thank you Patricia. always on the lookout for new ways to use up a glut. We'll definitely give the marmalade a go. If you saw our freezers, you'd realise that freezing is not an option! Though 'souped up' seems to take up less volume.

There is a recipe for the marmalade here: http://tarragonnthyme.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/pumpkin-and-squash.html and I think there is a pumpkin squash recipe somewhere as well. I am all for having decent grub in the freezers but sometimes you need the bottles as well. Have you thought about bottling fruit etc to make more room in the freezers for the meat and the veg. Or will that cause another problem. I am without a freezer at the moment - I have always had a chest one and an upright both do not work. Must say am lost without hopefully it will get sorted soon.

Take care and keep up the good work

Tricia (aka Pattypan - I am only ever Patricia when I am in deep doo doo!

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John Pegden and Sue Blyth live at Swallow Farm, a smallholding which they run on the Lincolnshire Fens. John has a close affinity with nature, his livestock and the soil, which he shares with you here. Occasionally though, his obsession with birding interrupts his work! In 2012 he resolved to see every sunrise, but missed one! No rash resolutions for 2013 though.